


7.01: In The Outward Air

by idlesuperstar



Series: The Crooked Roads [1]
Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: 7.01, M/M, Season/Series 07, dubcon (implied/past)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlesuperstar/pseuds/idlesuperstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas smiles ruefully to the empty air. Harry’s not the only one with doubts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	7.01: In The Outward Air

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in what I hope is going to be a series of one-per-episode fics, from 7.01 - 8.04. They're kind of Lucas' brainpan, so they won't make too much sense if you've not seen the episode in question. 
> 
> A couple of disclaimers: I've not (thanks to the advice of a kind friend) seen series nine, so this has not so much of a 'lalalala series nine didn't happen' backstory for Lucas, more of a 'this is kind of how I think it was based on seven and eight' backstory. Other than that I hope it sticks pretty much to canon. [playazindaback](http://playazindaback.tumblr.com/) has graciously cast steely eyes over this, so any errors are mine. Let me know of any howlers. 
> 
> Secondly, this has at most canon levels of violence (I'm squeamish) and some allusions to flashback torture scenes/dub-con, but please let me know if I need to bung more tags/warnings on. I'm new to this level of pain. It has more than canon levels of swearing, though. Because. 
> 
> Intertitles are Proverbs of Hell from William Blake's _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell._ Title from Blake's _The Crystal Cabinet_.
> 
> Series notes [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/series/136827)

_Fish and chips._

It springs instinctively into his mind, and he says it almost - _almost_ \- without thinking. He can’t see Harry’s expression, and even if he could, well, Harry rarely lets anything slip. But his face earlier - 

No, Harry wouldn’t be so unprofessional as to let anything as human as _guilt_ show, even if he could actually feel it. But _surely_ there had been - well, no, maybe Lucas is reading too much into it. He’s well practiced in that. 

He smiles a little to himself, turns his gaze from the too-dazzling speeding traffic up to the vast dark sky. He’s blown it. His sole chance to ask anything of Harry, no strings, no debt, and he says _fish and chips._

 

Later, much later - at the end of the increasingly delirious day - in the terrifying silence of the safe house, lying awake on the too-soft mattress, he will realise that the thought came to him in English. That it was the first truly unguarded thought he had had in eight years.

 

The fish and chips are perfect, impossibly. As is the tea. 

 

* *

_The fox condemns the trap, not himself._

 

The jeans are uncomfortable, stiff with dye still, scratchy on his skin. He shouldn’t be wishing for his prison clothes. Between the jeans and the look of discomfort - _distaste?_ \- that Harry can’t hide, the conversation is excruciating. Part of him thinks Harry’s come to make sure he’s not cowering in a toilet cubicle. Or downloading files to give to Arkady. 

He can’t read Harry’s face anymore. All that time with Arkady he’d thought of him as like Harry, but in fact, he realises with a disorientating clarity, he’d been attributing Arkady’s characteristics to Harry. Looking for familiar landmarks. 

Arkady is an amateur compared to Harry.

"They all mean something," he says, aware that Harry is standing as far away as it’s possible to and still be in the same room. 

Some of them, deliberately the ones he can’t see, only mean _please let me not die in this place_. The others -

If he got out - _when_ he got out - he had to be able to look at them every day in the mirror and think - _this is who I was before, and after. Not only during_. Think of something bigger than himself. 

Some men have religion, some have football. Lucas has Blake. 

Harry is unhappy, that’s obvious. He thinks Lucas isn’t up to the job, whatever the job is. Lucas shrugs the shirt on, buttons treacherous under his shaking fingers, aware that he sounds like he’s begging. 

Lucas smiles ruefully to the empty air. Harry’s not the only one with doubts.  

 

* * 

 

Adam Carter -in spite of his men’s magazine grooming, and his pretty face, and the almost palpable sense of entitlement that surrounds him - is annoyingly likeable. What’s most surprising is that Harry is letting him do most of the talking, run the op. Not as a test, either. Adam is the trusted star pupil. 

Lucas sits quietly, hunched in on himself. A sudden sympathy flares up for that kid from school, what was his name? Mark - Butler? - constantly baffled by the intricacies of Shakespeare. A momentary glimmer of desperate hope as he grasped for comprehension, only to sink back, pitiful, defeated. 

It was the desperation that had been so embarrassing.

Lucas keeps his mouth shut, and hopes that Adam’s confidence will deflect any scrutiny. He flicks glances at the others but their faces mean nothing. It’s like trying to read in a foreign language. He’s spent so long decoding the minutiae of Oleg’s expressions that everyone else is incomprehensible.

He realises that he has Adam to thank for his inclusion in this, not Harry.

He wonders how long it will take to pay _that_ debt.

* *

_Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd._

 

The car is claustrophobic. The irony is not lost on him. If he concentrates, he can blame it on too much coffee, and not on the fact that he’s trapped, impotent, while Adam and Ben do the running around.

Adam takes up too much room in the car. Lucas is beginning to hate his confidence. 

"You know what Harry called you?" Adam says, almost conversationally.

"Lots of things, I’d imagine. Few of them complimentary," Lucas replies, his voice scratchy with disuse. He’s constantly getting the tone wrong. He’s out of practice.

"I told him I thought he was foolhardy, giving up Boklov with no guarantees," Adam says, as if questioning Harry’s judgement is an everyday occurrence.

"I can’t imagine he liked that."

"He said," Adam continues, as if he’s not heard him, "the return package is so much of a prize we don’t need to worry."

Lucas has to turn away from Adam’s clear gaze. He stares out of the window, swallowing hard, trying not to let his breathing give him away.

 

* *

 

Lucas was wrong about Adam. He’s not confident. He’s _mental_. 

Lucas has a possibly unhealthy disregard for his own physical safety, but Adam runs towards danger like a man with nothing to lose. 

There’s something wrong with this team, thinks Lucas, gripping the door handle as Adam takes another corner too tightly. Harry, Adam, even _Malcolm_. They’ve all lost something. Someone, maybe. What the fuck happened while he was gone? It’s not collective. They’re all sheltering their own private griefs.

Only Ben seems alright. And Connie. Connie looks sad, but her eyes are steelier than most. 

Lucas swears as his elbow bangs against the door. 

Adam laughs. Lucas can’t help but like him. Maybe he’s not done this to make Lucas owe him something, after all. Maybe he’s just a decent bloke. Or maybe he thinks he’s seen something familiar in Lucas. 

He’s wrong. Lucas hasn’t lost anyone. Lucas has _not_ lost anyone. 

 

* * * 

 

Bluffing the idiots was good, but the judder of pain up his arm as he takes the kid full on the chin is the best feeling he’s had since - 

he deliberately shuts the thought down. 

They’re kids. Jesus Christ, as if he didn’t already feel old today.

Good to know that sarcasm is alive and well in the British Isles. One failing of the Russians, with their fucking Dostoyevskian sense of grand fatalism; they’re not ones for flippancy in the face of death. 

He grins fleetingly at the soldier, deliberately turns his head away from the desperate relief in his eyes.  

Lucas thinks that punching people in the service of his country is worth a hundred pointless psych evaluations.

 

* *

 

Punching _Russians_ in the service of his country is worth a thousand. 

Cyanide pills. Fucking Russians, in love with their own mythology. Fucking trenchcoats and enigmatic silence and black leather gloves and _damn_ the bitch. Damn her to hell.

Before Oleg - oh Jesus fuck, _must_ he think of that now - Lucas knows he would have got a thrill from the fight that wasn’t just down to adrenaline. He has no illusions about himself. There’s something about a woman who can fight him like an equal that’s a real turn on. 

All he’d felt, though, in the midst of the desperation to stop the bitch getting away with it, was that she was tiny. That her ribs, her hands, her thighs, were too small. That she felt wrong. 

Lucas has no illusions about himself. He is so far beyond fucked.

 

* * *

_The most sublime act is to set another before you._

 

They hear the explosion like a distant thunderclap.

The woman - Ros - looks like she’s been shivved in the gut and is trying not to show it. Like she wishes Lucas had been driving the car. Lucas can’t blame her. Adam shouldn’t be dead. Adam is Harry’s golden boy, five’s best agent. 

Lucas is the one who should be dead. Would be, if Oleg hadn’t kept him alive. Hadn’t hauled him down and made him promise not to try it again. 

The heavy warmth of his hands, the hot press of his face against Lucas’. The desperation in his voice. Begging him not to try it again.

The irony of that wasn’t the only thing that had kept him awake at nights.

_You bastard, Adam,_ Lucas thinks, deliberately blocking the thoughts out. _I was just starting to like you._

And then, _how the fuck am I going to repay this debt, now?_

 

_* * *_

 

He stands, gripping the sink, trying to stare himself down in the mirror. There is nothing difficult about this. He can do this. He _chooses_ to do this. He has - he laughs to himself - free will. 

One last thing on this interminable day.

He turns the shower on, waits for the water to warm up. The sound of it against the shower curtain is hideous. He shoves it aside. He can do this. It’s just a shower. He fucking stinks, he needs to clean up. That cursory wash in the sink under Harry’s troubled gaze seems like days ago. 

He is not going to capitulate and have a bath instead. For one thing, he’s so tired he might fall asleep and drown, and Harry would go mental. 

He didn’t survive eight years to drown in a bath in a shitty safehouse in London. 

_You didn’t survive on your own, Lucas,_ whispers Oleg’s voice in his head. He dismisses it, pulls his half-unbuttoned shirt roughly over his head. Shucks off the jeans thankfully. His thighs are faintly blue where the dye has rubbed off. He supposed at least he’s worn them in a bit today. 

The sound of the water is _not_ getting louder. It’s just bathroom acoustics. 

He tries the water again, and it’s just warm. If he waits any longer he might lose his nerve.

He steps out of his underwear and under the spray, trying not to grit his teeth. There’s some cheap shower gel that smells like no lemon he’s ever met, but it will do. It’s a relief to wash his hair. It needs cutting. Elizaveta always said how unfair it was that even when it was greasy his hair still looked good. He’s not sure she’d say that right now. 

He breathes in, steadily. Breathes out. He longs for her to be with him, teasing him.

 

This is okay. He can do this. He scrubs at himself, as much of his back and shoulders as he can reach, lathers his hands again and soaps under his arms, and down each one, methodically. He’s actually glad the water pressure is so shit. 

He washes his chest, his abdomen. 

_Know thyself_. He’d thought he did, back then. Thought he’d discovered everything there was, lurking in the dark corners of his mind. What a joke. That was before Oleg. 

Oleg’s hand, flat and warm on his abdomen, over that tattoo. The one point of warmth. Of comfort. His cock twitches.

_Christ_ , he doesn’t want to think of that now. He _can’t_. He scrubs harder, soaping almost fiercely round to his arse, down his thighs and back again, watching as the water runs faintly blue. 

He will _not_. But god, he’s _so_ tired. He bends his head, unthinking, and the water hits the back of his neck, making him jerk his head up and the water falls in his mouth and that’s - _jesus fuck no please I can’t breathe_ and he stumbles out from under the spray, chest heaving, spitting out water, the tiles freezing against his back. He keeps his footing, just. 

Palms flat against the tiles he chokes in great gulps of air, trying to blank out the images. They won’t go. It’s like a loop in his brain. He feels like he’s drowning. _Christ_. He has to do something. 

 

He puts a shaking palm flat on his abdomen, over the tattoo. He swore he wouldn’t do this. He _swore_. But he can’t think of anything else that he knows will work.

He closes his eyes, focuses on Oleg’s face. Oleg’s hand, flat and warm on his abdomen. Oleg’s voice, low and pleased in his ear. 

The sound of the shower fades away. The cold tiles under his back are the wall of his cell. The hand on him is Oleg’s. Sure and knowing. He’s already half-hard at the thought of it. 

Oleg’s voice in his ear, the smell of his sweat and the cheap detergent they wash the uniforms in. The rasp of his stubble against Lucas’ neck. The perfect tight curl of his fingers. The press of his thigh, the scratch of his trousers, the hard line of his cock through them.

His voice, low, coaxing, almost gentle. His hand, fast and tight. 

Lucas comes with a groan that echoes in the small bathroom. He lets his arm fall back, presses his shaking palm flat to the tiles, trying to ground himself. 

He steps under the tepid water and cleans himself off methodically, his mind a deliberate blank.

At least maybe he’ll sleep tonight.

 

* * *

 

Lucas blinks gritty eyes, feels the grime all over him, as if he’d never even had that damned shower. He feels as if he’s not slept. 

He almost wishes he’d not slept.

A better man wouldn’t have had to turn the radio on. And yet, an agent who doesn’t know his weaknesses is a danger to himself as well as everyone around him. Is he justifying his cowardice? Fuck it. He’s allowed to, for once. The low murmur of voices is - almost - reassuring. 

The silence was too much, after - he takes a gulp of his tea, swerving from the images that threaten again. He presses his forehead against the cold glass of the window and looks out with sore eyes at the blurry city emerging in the early dawn light. 

London. Unreal city. Somehow the nightmares are worse here. It’s the contrast. Back there, the days were the same as the nights. There was an awful consistency. Now - 

 

Christ, all he wants is for things to go back to normal. As normal as they ever were. He wants the things, the people, that he used to hold fast to - Harry, Elizaveta, London, work - to be the things he still holds fast to. _Wants_ to hold fast to.  

 

Eventually, he knows, his dreams will be full of the petty frustrations of his day, subtly warped. Overcrowded tubes. Rain. Lost keys. The team. Harry. Another terror threat. The usual. Not the usual. He will wake up and know they were dreams, because Malcolm was in the field, or, or - Adam was there. He will not wake up unable to tell if he’s asleep or awake because of the pain. 

He will not wake up sweating and shaking and _hard_ because of the pain. 

 

He finishes his tea, avoiding his reflection in the glass. He reckons he has a week’s grace for looking like shit before Harry’s frown line gets any deeper, but it’s best not to push it. He needs a shave. He’s sorely tempted to go to a barber’s, treat himself, he’s got eight years back pay in the bank, after all. And he needs a haircut desperately. But the thought of someone else holding a razor to his throat - 

As he pads across the tiny kitchen to put his empty mug in the sink, the murmurs from the radio change, the announcer saying _And now, the Shipping Forecast, at_ \- and Christ _Almighty_ it’s a punch to the gut, the sheer _relief_ that floods through him at the familiar, comforting cadence. The mug clatters into the sink and he is grasping the edge of the counter, filled with an overwhelming, aching, ease; half crying, half laughing, an ungainly mess. He finally feels like he might actually _really_ be home.

He stands and listens to the whole thing, tears and snot clogging his breathing, chest hitching uncontrollably, until it is over; listens to the pips chirping their way to six o’clock, and then turns the radio off, wipes the back of his hand across his snotty nose, and goes into the bathroom to clean himself up. 

_Oh Oleg_ , he thinks, smiling wryly at his soapy face in the mirror, _you should’ve bombarded me with Radio Four. I’d’ve cracked within days._

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> One of the great joys of Lucas is that he has a love of literature, (not just Blake, though how I love how much of a Blake fan he is) and so I can't restrain myself - there are going to be poetry references occasionally. 'Unreal city' is how Eliot describes London in _The Waste Land._
> 
> Also, for non-Brits/non Radio 4 listeners, you can check out [ The Shipping Forecast here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQ2Lk20n3U) (with bonus 'Sailing By'). It's not just a great institution, it's got a nostalgic comfort to it, because it's always been there, and it is virtually unchanged. 
> 
> This is my first Spooks fic, (eep) so any feedback/concrit would be superfantastisch. While I am going to stick to the episode canon for each one, I'm mostly obsessed with the mess that is Lucas/Oleg, so this is going to be slashy for the most part.


End file.
